I am writing a paper for a conference titled: The Nature of Light: What are Photons? It would be very helpful to obtain an idea about how this group of scientists visualize a photon propagating in a vacuum. There are no right or wrong answers. You can give either a detailed answer or merely choose one of the following four photon descriptions. A) The Copenhagen interpretation where a packet of energy discontinuously jumps to form waves of probability. B) The de Broglie model where a packet of energy has a pilot wave which steers the packet of energy. C) A distributed electromagnetic wave which propagates in an empty vacuum. The particle property appears because the energy collapses to a point when absorbed. D) A distributed electromagnetic wave propagating like a quantized transverse sound wave in the quantum mechanical medium of highly energetic vacuum (zero point energy). The particle property appears because the energy collapses to a point when absorbed.
To John Macken
What is the question, how to see a photon, or how to describe it?
It seems that the question is the 2nd one.
If so, your answers are not correct, each one of them contains mistakes.
A) The Copenhagen interpretation where a packet of energy discontinuously jumps to form waves of probability.
I am sorry, what you say is pure confusion. First of all the expression packet of energy is not used, but wave-packet. The photon is a wave, and many times we have a wave limited in time. We call it wave-packet. The reason for this name is that the wavelength is not unique there, we have a superposition of waves of different wavelengths. And since to each wavelength corresponds also a frequency (which gives the energy of that wave by Planck's formula E = hν), the energy in the wave-packet is not unique.
The sentence "discontinuously jumps to form waves of probability" is as saying that a rabbit discontinuously jumps to become a chair. You'd better leave this, together with the old time idea of waves of probability. What is correct, is what I said above of the wave-packet.
B) The de Broglie model where a packet of energy has a pilot wave which steers the packet of energy.
L. de Broglie dealt with particles, not with photons. For brief information one can look in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_wave . The photons don't fit in the formulas mentioned there, as the photons don't have rest-mass. de Broglie thought that a quantum particle is a point-particle floating in the wave-packet. However, to think of a photon as a point is very unfit. What yes can be said is that if the wave-packet is of very small volume, then it looks like a particle.
C) and D) too many mistakes. The fact that a photon is considered today a particle is due mainly to two historical facts: 1) the ultraviolet catastrophe, solved by Planck by proposing that the e.m. energy is not continuous, but distributed in portions as for particles - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_catastrophe, 2) the Compton effect that showed that photons have linear momentum like particles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton_scattering .
I have no idea what is going to be the scientific level of your audience, but for non-expert audience I would leave aside talks of collapse.
James, The paper you cite by David Hestenes appears to be a mistake. The reference is titled The Zitterbewegung Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and does not even mention the word photon but it mentions "electron" 63 times.
Oh my mistake. But it's a wonder something similar hasn't been done with the photon. I suppose that there's a basic problem with the polarization pictures: circular and linear polarizations seem to be mutually contradictory.
Hi, any book you can search through the internet at undergraduate level will give you some basic idea about your question, or just go to a library of any university where you live ,you will find out lots of very useful info abouy what you are looking for.
Tough question, in my opinion. I think something has to go and query the physical entities, e.g. to find out of a second slit is blocked or not. The concept of the slit and the shape of the wave through and beyond it is dependent on EM equations that assume an interaction with the material of the slit, its surface conductivity, and so forth. Yet unless it amounts to at least one quantum, this interaction is undetectable, and it seems to influence experiments in which only one quantum at a time is present.
Because of the necessity to query the physical world, I would rule out A as you described it. Someone else might describe it differently.
Method B, the pilot wave, still has the problem I discussed above in that it cannot know the rules of propagation without interaction, which it does not have below the quantum level. Unless maybe it interacts in such a way that the environment immediately gives back the energy? So I cannot completely rule out B, but it has many issues.
Method (or model) C possibly has fewer issues accounting for the sort of pre-interaction necessary to determine propagation that I described in connection with B, but at least the energy is distributed. However, arguing against C is the continuity with observably discrete particles, which include really high energy photons. They leave a track in a particle detector. However, I believe they cannot do that and at the same time produce an interference pattern. It is a requirement of interference that no part of the energy is lost. So I cannot fully say whether B or C.
I'm not familiar with D but it seems a variation of C.
Perhaps in a few decades someone will come up with a better description. We know that something happens in entanglement which is beyond relativistic speed, and are just beginning to explore this.
Option D) is close to what I think. The medium I imagine is made of only one type of "particle" with properties of the kind of properties of a quark. This kind of medium supports static closed density perturbations describable by a wave function only of space and that is able of propagating at constant velocity, which we identify as particles, and supports a "open" perturbation like standard media, which propagates at the propagation speed of the medium (light speed).
Dear John,
You must have studied what was written about photon. The four models presented you confirm this. Now is successful quantum model. Most physicists working with this successful model and ignores other possibilities. I think D is the physical model (more phenomenological than mathematically!). I hope soon to present and physico-mathematical arguments.
Best regards,
Ion
John,
Trying to visualize what photons (and gravitational waves) actually ‘look like’ is something that I have been passionate about since high school. Using mainstream models was futile, so I was forced to create my own Foamy Ether Theory (FET). Before FET, I could not, for the life of me, visualize EM waves being emitted or absorbed by an atom just because an electron changes its orbit. The problem (I later realized) is that we look at matter and space as two separate entities (see my article “The Persistent Failure of a Two Substance Paradigm”).
FET proposes that the entire universe is comprised of a foamy (web like) ether existing in a void. Particles of matter, the forces of nature and curved space are merely distortions or activities in the foam. You may enjoy browsing my site that contains many animations and simulations of EM waves, gravitational waves, vacuum energy, etc.
B) is close in that a packet of energy has a pilot wave because it is a wave of the foamy ether, so it has to follow its geometry. D) is my favorite because your “quantum mechanical medium of highly energetic vacuum (zero point energy)” is another way of saying ‘foamy ether’.
Figures 17 to 21 may interest you.
http://www3.telus.net/foamyether/thephoton.html
The de Broglie model where a packet of energy has a pilot wave which steers the packet of energy. The particle property appears because the energy collapses to a point when absorbed.
What names here "photon" when taken as an object produces weirdness.
There is a common point among the comments: "energy collapses to a point when absorbed". Basically, Planck hypothesis concerns interaction between matter and light (electromagnetic fields) indicates a "granular" form: quantum. The pictures concern descriptive forms: waves and particles. But classical pictures concerns classical models. The word "photon" occupies the place of quantum of electromagnetic energy in our descrptions.
Thus, seeing that "energy collapses to a point when absorbed" clearly suggests the interaction is local. It is here that a particle model appears as a natural way to speak about.
An answer to the question is hence difficult to formulate. One reason might be that the quantum theory is not representational. (Do not take our semi-classical models for a theory and presentation of "reality").
My dear colleagues in knowledge,
It is important to imagine phenomenological models. More important it is to invent a physical - mathematically model we can test / verify the predictive power. If we do this, the model remains only that part beautiful but inefficient.
Best regards,
Ion
Dear John,
according to my theory of quantum-gravity, any quantum particle can be represented with respect to an observer by means an integral space-like 3-chain of observed quantum super Yang-Mills PDEs, say (YM)[i]. The particularity of photons non-interacting with matter, is that they live as 4-dimensional solutions of (YM)[i], outside the Higgs sub-equation of (YM)[i], say (Higgs)[i]\subset(YM)[i]. This characterizes their property to be mass-free. Other properties of photons, namely to be charge-free and spin-1-bosons, can be similarly characterized by considering the geometric structure of (YM)[i]. In other words photons can be characterized by means of quantum geometrodynamics. With this respect, the other four points of view, listed by you, can be considered as approximated representations. Let go in some details. [For more information see http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1468121812000491 , http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2894 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.4856.]
A. The probability-wave interpretation is according to the point of view that quantum-world can be completely encoded by the classical Schroedinger equation, say (Sch). [Nowadays I do not believe that there are serious scientists that consider acceptable this point of view. By the way one can reformulate (Sch) in a more general framework, say \hidehat (Sch), by considering integral bordism properties of (YM)[i]. But in this context we do not talk more about probabilistic waves, as solutions of \hidehat (Sch), but 1-parameter semigroup of deformations of suitable sections of the fiber bundle where it is built (YM)[i]. Interested scientists can look to my book http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/2986.]
B. Here the criticism is similar to the point A. since refers to the same QM's classical point of view.
C. This point of view is not well justified. In fact it should combine a classical description of e.m. wave with a quantum interpretation of matter....
D. Here the criticism is similar to the point C.
How do you explain (or visualize) entanglement in terms of ABCD?
Seems to me photons know the state of all distant objects (e.g. the double slit). Any sort of wave model is a first cut at obtaining this remote information by propagating energy there and back (e.g. to produce interference of physical things).
In the case of the single-photon experiments, we start cheating and only propagate probability waves there and back. They must follow exactly the same paths as real energy waves, without really exchanging energy with their environment. Nobody was ever burned down by a probability laser (saw something like that in a novel once, though).
In the case of entanglement, this was at first thought to work, but John Bell's theorem, now experimentally verified, suggests that waves cannot carry the necessary information. It must be communicated superluminally.
(My spell checker doesn't like that word and wants to substitute "supernaturally." Probably it is right.)
So you have a contradiction. A photon is a piece of light which by definition travels at the speed of light. But quite aside from the wave-particle confusion, it must know things at greater speeds.
Now usually such discussions are limited to flat space QM puzzles. Curved space-time is taken as a given background. BUT, this is merely a convention adopted by physicists. It is perfectly reasonable to view space-time as a construction from the properties of light, i.e. photons. I.e. light travels at certain coordinate speeds and therefore time dilates and objects radially shrink.
If you look at the constructive proposition for gravity very closely, you find again the light must know something about distant objects. It must know, basically, where the mass is. This is hard to explain without becoming long winded. The time dilation can be explained as a potential field. But radial length contraction is sort of cumulative, not due to either the scalar value of potential, or due even to the local gradient, but due to the accumulated potential difference. I.e. radial light speed depends on the shape of the potential function in distant space.
BTW John, I think it was you who straightened me out on radial coordinate speed about a year ago.
Photon: a massless entity travelling in the space-time (hypermedium) along geodesics, determined by the distribution of matter (stress tensor) in the nehibouring space-time. It can be acquired or detected (or seen) only by the interaction with fermions (hadrons or leptons) but as soon as it is acquired it loses its properties and its energy is transformed into mass which cannot be a point mass. An hypothesys can be made about its transformation into mass: the time it takes for the transition of massless photon into tied energy(-mass) should be a Planck time.
I would like to thank everyone that has answered the question so far. I will not give my opinion about the structure of a photon now because I do not want to influence the answers being offered. I will post the paper that I write on this subject on my ResearchGate profile page after about July 20.
Stefano, an interesting definition for its combination of brevity and comprehensiveness. But I think you are missing the connections of entanglements by declaring that it is only an "entity traveling in space-time along geodesics."
To visualize a photon, I start from the idea that any material object manifests itself in space by continuously emitting - at a rate proportional to its rest mass - "informatons": granular mass and energy less entities rushing away with the speed of light (c) and carrying information about the position, the velocity and the electrical status ("e-information") of their emitter. The informatons emitted by a charged particle are characterized by two attributes: their g-index sg and their e-index se . In the case of a particle at rest (relative to an inertial reference frame) the vector sg (that is important in the case of gravitation) is pointing to the emitting particle. That also applies to the vector se if the emitter is negative, in the other case the direction of se is opposite to that of sg. The electric field E at a point can be identified with the density of the flow of e-information at that point.
It can be shown (see RG - Antoine Acke - Electromagnetism explained by the theory of informatons) that the e-indices of the "train" of informatons emitted in a certain direction by an oscillating charged particle constitute a transversal electric field that can be described as a wave that is transporting energy. I assume that some of the constituent informatons of that "train" are loaded with a quantum of energy and I identify these energy carrying informatons as "photons". According to this viewpoint, the absorption of a photon means that an energy carrying informaton is losing its energy quantum.
To summarize: I interpret a photon as an informaton carrying a quantum of energy. The accompanying wave is the macroscopic manifestation of the oscillating character (in space and in time) of the transversal component of the e-indices of the informations that constituate the "train" of which the energy carrying informaton is a part.
Robert's remark about entanglement is very deep. Really nonlinear quantum propagators allow to naturally justify entanglement phenomena.
Comment:
Quantum physics is concerned with quantum states that are somehow sustained by elementary materiality yet not representing it. Quantum states are elements of Hilbert spaces (abstract space).
Classical physics in one way or another is representing a material system.
These two domains are non-commensurate. The conclusion is simple.
We have missed a fundamental difference between quantum and classical physics.
The use of semi-classic models produce the impression that we can use classical concepts (e.g. particles and waves) to describe quantum situations. The procedure generates weirdness. But is is not Quantum Mechanics that is weird, it the language we use that produces such effects.
Antoine, I recall seeing your "informaton" theory before, but in this context I made an association with the photon's abiity to "know" the status of distant objects. However, your constraint that the informatons travel at the speed of light prevents proper operation of entanglement - maybe even the correct operation of a double slit with a closeable window on one of the slits.
Robert,
Yes the entaglement is something peculiar to the quantum realm of the photon and has to be considered if we consider the detection of the phase. The instant variation of the phase of the entangled photons is something which goes Beyond the space-time, it is an independent channel....it overcomes the constants of the universe c, G and h which regulate basically the propagation (radiant energy) and confinement of the energy (tied energy).
The wave-packet division is instead relevant to the propagation of the photon.
If I divide a wave function of a photon, which is its holistic property, (extended Young's slit experiment) I can detect the photon along two different directions (at infinite distance) indifferently. If I detect it in one point in space along one direction, it will not be detected in the other.. (PENROSE) This basically impairs the possibility for the local stress tensor to be influenced by the radiant energy... the stress tensor has to be independent (not changed by) on the radiant energy passing through the space time, but the space time in any case drives such radiant energy.
Stefano, the first part of your comment I understand. But the 2nd part, you are saying radiation cannot produce a gravitational field? It seems I may recall you having said that before, but it struck me harder in the above statement.
What is your analysis of a box of photons?
If a photon bounces between two coordinate stationary horizontal mirrors in a gravitational field, is there a force differential on the mirrors? Assume they are mechanically connected and the force is measured at one point. (i.e. a box of photons, if we don't worry about the sides)
The nature of the photon:
I think the photon is like any ordinary particle but with a very, very small rest mass. It is a wave in the metrics of spacetime (just like the EM and QM waves are). It is actually two waves that coincide since it moves very, very close to c – the deBroglie wave induced by motion in space, and the Compton wave induced by motion in time. A particle in motion has the true velocity gamma*v and is in a different 4D spacetime manifold than the observer. This is also true for the photon. However, the maximum observable velocity in the local rest manifold is always c. Thus time dilation is simply due to the fact that although we observe v the true velocity is gamma*v. As a consequence the momentum of the photon is proportional to gamma*c.
To John Macken
What is the question, how to see a photon, or how to describe it?
It seems that the question is the 2nd one.
If so, your answers are not correct, each one of them contains mistakes.
A) The Copenhagen interpretation where a packet of energy discontinuously jumps to form waves of probability.
I am sorry, what you say is pure confusion. First of all the expression packet of energy is not used, but wave-packet. The photon is a wave, and many times we have a wave limited in time. We call it wave-packet. The reason for this name is that the wavelength is not unique there, we have a superposition of waves of different wavelengths. And since to each wavelength corresponds also a frequency (which gives the energy of that wave by Planck's formula E = hν), the energy in the wave-packet is not unique.
The sentence "discontinuously jumps to form waves of probability" is as saying that a rabbit discontinuously jumps to become a chair. You'd better leave this, together with the old time idea of waves of probability. What is correct, is what I said above of the wave-packet.
B) The de Broglie model where a packet of energy has a pilot wave which steers the packet of energy.
L. de Broglie dealt with particles, not with photons. For brief information one can look in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_wave . The photons don't fit in the formulas mentioned there, as the photons don't have rest-mass. de Broglie thought that a quantum particle is a point-particle floating in the wave-packet. However, to think of a photon as a point is very unfit. What yes can be said is that if the wave-packet is of very small volume, then it looks like a particle.
C) and D) too many mistakes. The fact that a photon is considered today a particle is due mainly to two historical facts: 1) the ultraviolet catastrophe, solved by Planck by proposing that the e.m. energy is not continuous, but distributed in portions as for particles - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_catastrophe, 2) the Compton effect that showed that photons have linear momentum like particles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton_scattering .
I have no idea what is going to be the scientific level of your audience, but for non-expert audience I would leave aside talks of collapse.
To Sofia W., please offer your own concise description(s) if you don't like John's. You seem to be nit picking rather than identifying really fundamental flaws. It does seem that John used the word packet when he should have used quanta, but they are sufficiently similar that it is not a big conceptual flaw. In fact you used the word "portions" which in 48 years of exposure to QM I've never seen that word used for anything in connection with it.
I chose not to comment on the "see" verb, but I was thinking to myself, well, I see them with my retina. Even that is not correct if one takes the meaning of see as "understand," but that would be more nitpicking.
Dear Sofia,
"L. de Broglie dealt with particles, not with photons. For brief information one can look in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_wave . The photons don't fit in the formulas mentioned there, as the photons don't have rest-mass."
In some publications including the American journal of Physics about the Relativistic Doppler effects (REDZIC) the De Broglie formula is considered in order to pass from the wave interpretation of light to the quantum interpretation. That the initial purpose of De Broglie was to deal with electrons in the atom, it is clear, but his concept was then extended to "particles" being bosons or fermions as far as I know.
The sentence "discontinuously jumps to form waves of probability" is as saying that a rabbit discontinuously jumps to become a chair.
This is a remarkable point . It has to be clarified better in it about the presence or not of Quantum Jumps... there is a paper of Erkki Brandas "there are quantum Jumps" who questions about this subject and the fact that Shrodinger did not accept the presence of quantum jumps.
Robert,
"What is your analysis of a box of photons?
If a photon bounces between two coordinate stationary horizontal mirrors in a gravitational field, is there a force differential on the mirrors? Assume they are mechanically connected and the force is measured at one point. (i.e. a box of photons, if we don't worry about the sides)"
There should not be any differential between the mirrors, since the mass of the photon does not vary, as its energy does not. Its frequency is perceived changed by the effect on atoms of the gravitational potential (or better say by the variable speed of light).
There is no differential of force, no net force, otherwise the body composed of the two mirrors mechanically connected would experience self-motion ....The two mirror object in presence of a differential may begin to levitate for example, due only to its internal dynamics (bouncing photons).
To John Macken,
As I said in my previous answer, I don't know if your audience is professional. I assume that many people there are not. So, you have to restrict yourself to an intuitive, simple description. You have to tell them that the fact that the electromagnetic waves consist in discrete portions was first assumed by Plank, in order to explain the UV catastrophe. I mentioned the site in Wikipedia where you can find a nice presentation of the story.
Next, the Plank assumption was confirmed experimentally - the photoelectric effect. Einstein explained it in base of Planck's assumption.
These facts, though, were not enough for confirming that the photon behaves as a particle. A particle has energy, linear momentum, and other features. The Planck and Einstein discovery referred only to the fact that the e.m. radiation comes in portioned, but they didn't convince that we have to do with a particle. It was the Compton effect, i.e. the photon scattering, that showed that photons have linear momentum.
Now, I want to stress some issues about your proposals C and D..
C) A distributed electromagnetic wave which propagates in an empty vacuum. The particle property appears because the energy collapses to a point when absorbed.
You'd better leave this. The e.m. wave propagates not only through vacuum, but through any medium. Of course, there are media "optically thick" that absorb the photons, or highly reflecting media, s.t. the transmission coefficient becomes zero. However, the atmosphere, or water, do transmit the e.m. waves in the visible range. The atmosphere transmits also the e.m. waves in radio frequency, s.t. it's not only the vacuum.
About the collapsing to a point, you may complicate yourself, because a wave of light illuminating a photographic plate leaves a whole image. For obtaining just a point you have to produce a very weak wave.
D) A distributed electromagnetic wave propagating like a quantized transverse sound wave in the quantum mechanical medium of highly energetic vacuum (zero point energy). The particle property appears because the energy collapses to a point when absorbed.
NO ! The light differs from sound: the sound needs a medium for propagating. Sound waves propagate because the vibratory energy is transferred from one molecule of the medium to another. In vacuum, the sound cannot propagate. On the contrary, the e.m. wave has a body of itself that carries the energy, the photons, s.t. they don't need a medium.
Robert,
From the hypothesis that a photon is an informaton transporting a quantum of energy, it follows that a photon "knows" the status of its emitter.
The speed at which a photon is travelling is determined by the speed of the energy carrier - the informaton - that in all circumstances equals c. This implies that c is the "speed of light in vacuum". The speed of light in a medium is c/n with n > 1. That is because of the transfer of the energy packet from the carrying informaton to a particle when the photon interacts with a constiuent element of the medium. That transfer results in an oscillation of the striked particle and the loading with an energy quantum of an informaton emitted by it. That proces of absorption and emission requires some time.
In my knowledge no one could see one single photon . only some short laser impacts.
But I have heard single photons in an acoustic simulation-system.
Sorry if I haven't read someone's comment carefully enough, but, IMHO, no one has so far mentioned the key point. There is no rigorous concept of photon. PHOTON is a PHENOMENOLOGY. As any phenomenology, it is helpful in some cases (e.g., light statistics, photodetection, Compton effect, photoeffect), while becoming a nuisance in others (the two-slit experiment, for instance). The rule of thumb is, photons is ok if only energy matters. In all these cases, photon can be thought about as a "light particle". As soon as the wave nature of light comes into play, better forget it. All ways of thinking about photons as wave packets are pregnant with paradoxes. Use classical optics, if it fails, your only choice is quantum electrodynamics.
Re Pilmak "photon is a phenomenology" without a rigorous concept.
That is a very good way of putting it. It's not as if we derived something mathematically and then couldn't understand what we created. We are still trying to understand light. And there are several more mysteries than just the wave nature.
- The action or knowing at a distance problem - entanglement, etc.
- The constancy of its local speed is in most developments an assumption and not truly understood (re: John's emphasis on propagation in a vacuum)
- The flip side of its local constancy is its variations in coordinate speed, which become perplexing in a gravitational field, especially the radial coordinate velocity which leads directly to curvature of space.
- The ready conversion to and from absolutely any other observable sort of matter-energy, leading to the reasonable speculation that everything is made of light and really nothing else (observable) exists.
And that's just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
Dear All,
taking into account the Sofia's suggestion to give a more intuitive definition of the photon and the last posts about their phenomenological interpretations, let me remark that in this way one can forget that Physics and Mathematics are unable to discover the essential meaning of the world, but they can propose only models that should justify world mechanisms. Whether one forgets this our limit to understand world, one arrives to talk of nothing. With this respect, in order to talk about photons, it is necessary to understand to which mathematical model we refer. Phenomenology is important, but it cannot give a conceptual framework to justify phenomena. Therefore, to refer to some mathematical framework it is a necessity. In order to be more clear, let me, for example, consider some recent simulations of e.m. photons by means of acoustic waves, hence by means phonons. Such simulations, can be accepted only like amusing toys, but encode completely different physical phenomena. In this sense one can share the Sofia's strong reaction against the interpretation of photons in the point of view D. proposed by John. But such misunderstandings occur very easily when the mathematical model is not correct .... Do you remember Lorentz's aether electromagnetic theory ?
None of the four proposed answers is correct. A classical electromagnetic wave is a coherent superposition of a macroscopic number of photons. A configuration of the electromagnetic field is, in general, described by a state of N photons, where N is an integer. The vacuum has N=0 and the first excitation has N=1. This field configuration is that of one photon. That's all that's needed. The dependence of the field in space and time describes the spacetime properties completely. One shouldn't mix up phase space and spacetime, they're distinct notions. A good introduction is provided by Feynman's book ``QED: the strange theory of light and matter'' and by his lectures on the subject: http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8
The technical part is in all textbooks on quantum field theory, when one expands the field variables in Fourier space, imposes canonical commutation relations and realizes that at each point in spacetime one is describing a harmonic oscillator.
John,
L.I. Plimac is right, it is phenomenology. You can not see photon as well as electron. Only their acts of interections.
Regards,
Eugene.
Photons are known to be able to travel billions of light years and then still have sufficient energy left, such that a suitable detector can detect them.
Most physicists have interpretations of photons and ideas about the medium in which they travel that are in direct conflict with this observation.
The amplitude of spherical waves diminishes quickly with distance from the trigger point. Thus photons cannot be spherical waves. Photons are thought to be solutions of the wave equation. Only one kind of solution of the wave equation keeps its amplitude when travelling away from its trigger point. That solution concerns one-dimensional wave fronts.
Photons can be constituted of strings of one-dimensional wave fronts where each wave front carries a bit of energy.
The wave fronts must be able to vibrate the medium in which they travel. Thus that medium must be a field. That field cannot be the electrical field, because the existence of the electrical field relies on the nearby existence of electrical charges and the electrical field is known to diminish its amplitude as 1/r with distance r from the charge.
The field in which photons travel must be always and everywhere present. That field is our living space. Our living space gets deformed by massive particles and it can vibrate in order to support the one-dimensional wave fronts without getting deformed.
Vacuum is not a proper concept. It refers to emptiness. Our living space is a continuum that is here and there disrupted by the embedding of an elementary particle. What we call universe can be represented by this continuum.
The wave equation also offers spherical wave fronts as possible solutions. Their amplitude diminishes as 1/r with distance r from the emitter. If they regularly recur, then these phenomena contribute to the deformation of the continuum. The trigger is the recurrent embedding of an elementary particle. With other words elementary particles are point-like objects that hop around and in that way they form coherent location swarms that reflect the hectic dynamic movement of the particle. The swarm also corresponds to a hopping path.
See: http://www.e-physics.eu/FoundationsOfAMathematicalModelOfPhysicalReality.pdf
Stam NIcholis. You are wrong. Not N photon, but a state of a photon with quantum number N. It is an oscillator. "The vacuum has N=0 and the first excitation has N=1." is correct now
A state of any number of photons is a state of an (uncountably) infinite number of oscillators, each at a spacetime point, such that the total occupation number is equal to the number of photons in that state. That's what a field describes.
Dear Antoine,
I am no genuine Physicist (I have only basic education from University and no praxis) but I am interested in Quantum Computing.
You use the word and term "Information" to describe "something" and not scientifically exact in physical terms.
This is the most done usage in present time. In my work since about 10 years I try to differentiate this. I defined an axiom for using the word Information as term and postulated for scientist by using this word to try to find an exact scientific term. Look at http://www.plbg.at/Werke/english/Foundations%20of%20HO.pdf in Slide 5.
Another problem seems to me that you write : The speed of waves is the speed of it's carriers. I think about a simple water-wave : here the speed of Energy is not equal the speed an direction of it's carrier. Water is moving up and down and Energy is moving forward.
If photons are real genuine energy we can't say, how this moves - we know till now in packets of waves with different frequencies and these frequencies quantised. But proof my answer if you have more physically knowledge.....
Dear Franz,
To clarify my earlier reply, a few remarks.
1. About the definition of "information"
In §4 of the article "Fundamentals of the theory of informatons" the terms "g-" and "e-information" are defined and commented.
Regarding to g-information we start from Newton's law of universal gravity. Given the fact that the gravitational force exerted by a particle with mass m1 on a particle with mass m is pointing to the position of m1 and given the fact that the magnitude of that force is directly proportional to m1 and inversiely proportional to the square of the distance between the two particles, particle m must receive information about the presence in space of particle m1. In other words: particle m1 must send "information" about its mass and about its position to particle m. Because this conclusion is independent of the position and the mass of particle m we can generalize and posit that: A particle manifests itself in space by emitting information about its mass and about its position. We consider that type of information as a substantial element of nature and we call it "gravitational information" or "g-information". We propose that it is transported by mass and energy less granular entities that rush through space at the speed of light (c). Because they carry nothing but information we call these grains: "informatons" and we assume that a material object manifests its substantiality by continuously emitting informatons. The emission of informatons is governed by the postulate formulated in §4.2.
Regarding to e-information we start from Coulomb's law and we come through an analogue reasoning to the definition of the concept "e-information" (§4.3, §4.4).
2. About the speed of a photon
In the context of the theory of informatons, a "photon" is defined as a structure composed of an informaton and a quantum of energy (§6.1). The informaton is the carrier (the transporter) of the energy packet. From the postulate of the emission of informatons it follows immediately that in vacuum photons move with the speed c.
In the case of "absorption" of a photon by a particle, the photon desintegrates: the energy packet is transferred to the particle and the informaton continues its movement. The effect of the energy transfer is that the particle becomes an oscillator that is emitting a new photon (one of the emitted informatons is loaded with a quantum of energy). Because of that process of absorption and emission, the speed at which the energy moves through a medium is smaller than c.
Article Fundamentals of the Theory of Informatons.
Antoine,
unfortunately, the notion of information, as well as set in mathematics, can not be defined. They are basic (undefinable) notions.
One cannot understand the photon without knowing the physical process that causes the progression of time. And, one cannot understand this process without realizing that the cosmological expansion is in the scale of 4D spacetime. Since this process cannot be modeled by General Relativity there is no explanation to the photon with currently known physics. There is a book that develops this new point of view; "The Progression of Time" by me available at Amazon.
A Technical Monograph on this new development is now also being printed by the Russian Academy of Sciences.
John, if you really are interested in finding an answer to you photon question you should look into this. You may contact me at [email protected].
Dear Antoine,
thanks for your response.
In my thinking your g-information is synonym with gravitation and e-information is the same as light.
By using the term information you have only "something" but not yet any physical relevant object or entity or term. You only realize that these information's seem to be special physical entities - not more. Information is not yet a physical entity but a mental impression or term of a Human Being.
You may define endless kinds of special information but all of them are no scientific definitions yet.
That's the kernel of my new postulate!
Eugene, Franz,
I agree that the notion of information cannot be defined. I think however that this doesn't exclude that the term "information" can be used to develop a scientific description (with accurate definitions and mathematical deductions) of the gravitational and the electromagnetic phenomena.
For example, the theory of informatons assumes that gravitational and electric fields are substantial elements of nature and calls - referering to Newton's law of universal gravity and to Coulomb's law - the substance of these fields respectively "g-" and "e-information"; and identifies the gravitational field Eg and the electric field E at a point of a field respectively with the density of the flow of g- and the flow of e-information at that point.
@Stam Nicolis. You are confusing them. Count shelves, not books. In vacuum state the "number of photons" is zero, while the oscillators still exist, infinite number of them.They are in the lowest energy state though. The energy of photon is \hbar \omega (N+1/2), not \hbar \omega. The latter is the energy of a transition between the nearest states. The spin of photon is 1 for any N.
Photons are bosons, not fermions. The "number of photons" is not conserved. Consider brehmsstralung. A particle looses energy and emits. If you consider that it emits photons, then the weird notion that photons are just chunks of energy is born. Consider instead that some photons (oscillators) are excited into the states with larger N.
Something to think about. If you consider a matrix element
you can rewrite it as
\sum .
Do we have rights to separate this? Maybe they all are virtual?. Is there a light without a target?
I admit that it is the same question as about a husband in the wood. Will he be wrong anyway, if nobody ever hears him.
Dear John,
there are so many answers and useful proposals above that I am not sure I can add anything, but I note that you have not mention Einstein among the list of items that you plan to touch and, moreover, his interpretation of photoelectric effect has not been reminded by anybody yet.
Light was known to carry energy. According to Einstein, the photon is the *minimal* carrier of energy--in jargon, a quantum. It is a single entity, introduced in much the same manner as the quanta of electricity (I mean, the electron discovered by JJ Thomson) were introduced.
A photon of sufficient energy causes the photoelectric effect. In this situation, a straightforward usage of classical concepts (i.e. electrons as massive point particles + light as a wave) leads to a failure. This is how the concept of photon entered the discussion in physics.
Within this conceptual scheme, an exchange of radiation between two physical systems can be described as an exchange of photons, even if in many practical situations we can use grosser concepts, as the one of classical field. According to Einstein the grosser ("classical") description can be thought of as an average over the number of photons.
I believe that one can find a lot of inspiration from Feynman's book QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter and from the Nobel lectures given by him and by Schrodinger (and possibly those of Dirac, de Broglie and Einstein--even if the latter discusses relativity). They can be easily retrieved from Nobel's committee web site given below.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/
I missed Stefano's answer to my question. He posted 2 days ago, but the thread was growing too fast. The question was "If a photon bounces between two coordinate stationary horizontal mirrors in a gravitational field, is there a force differential on the mirrors?"
To read Stefano's full answer, click on page 3. Basically, he says NO, which is self-consistent with his earlier assertion that radiative energy does not produce a gravitational field. (I say this because anything which responds to a gravitational field should produce one.)
The essential point Stefano makes is "There should not be any differential between the mirrors, since the mass of the photon does not vary, as its energy does not. Its frequency is perceived changed by the effect on atoms of the gravitational potential (or better say by the variable speed of light)."
I had been thinking about this for nearly a year, and recently found another way of approaching the problem. But for a year I was thinking along the same lines as Stefano. The problem is in trying to think in a single reference frame, and not identifying all the necessary transformations of measurements at the other point, or more fundamentally, not being certain what they are.
However, we have a certain and well accepted transformation of force. If A is the higher mirror and B the bottom mirror, then Fa ~= Fb(1-GM/Rc2), i.e. there is a one time dilation factor reduction in force when taking a bottom local measurement and evaluating how it is felt at the top. There are simple arguments for this, in addition to the standard use of GR tensors, which can be found in either of my static field derivation papers.
If we look at a single photon going back and forth between top and bottom, at the bottom two things appear changed. The frequency appears larger. Also, since in any given time interval (at either point) the same number of photon bounces must have transpired, and time is running slower at the bottom, the number of photon impacts is greater.
The force at B will increase by two time dilation factors, one for the increased frequency, and one for the increased arrival rate. But how that force is felt at A is reduced only by one time dilation factor. So A feels a force from the bottom one time dilation factor greater than the direct force of the photon at the top. The box has a mass equal to the energy of the photon, and falls. Or exhibits self-motion as Stefano calls it.
I have not appealed to conceptualizations such as Equivalence, because I know Stefano doubts them, and indeed, at some point we have to understand more than just this broad assumption.
Dear John!
In order to imagine how a photon looks like just play the attached file.
The corresponding theory you can find in our book "Geometric View on Photon-like Objects", arXiv, math-ph, 1210.8323v2. The book is on sale through Internet.
Best regards!
Stoil Donev.
Sorry to pour rain on your idea, Stoil, but any "spatially finite" concept leaves out too much observable behavior of photons.
John,
The models given below are presented even though, as I know, they are not consistent with your line of research. The text below gives brief statements on matter and photons, but please review the book in the 3rd attachment for further understanding of these statements. Since it is difficult to discuss photons without understanding what matter is, both are presented here. The 1st and 2nd attachments are excerpted from the book for your convenience.
MATTER: Per Figure 2, in any of the three attachments, a view of the electron is given; it shows photon fibers combining to form two half cylindrical B-fields, which together is an electron. Thus, electrons are tiny fields, not hard particles. The two half fields oscillate inward and outward along their common z-axis. The reason why fibers (photons) combine to form a cylindrical B-field is given by Maxwell’s equations; please see the 2nd or 3rd attachment for the electron’s derivation. This tiny field has both particle and wave characteristics. The construction of other particles, such as protons and neutrons, consist of cylindrical B-fields also, similar to the electron. See Section 4 in the book for example. Thus, all matter is a compilation of cylindrical B-fields, which consist of oscillating and twirling photon fibers. Explanation of the photon fiber is given in the next paragraph. The charge of an electron is negative because its circumferential B-field is left-handed, while that of the proton is right-handed. A neutron has no charge because it consists of a mixture of left-handed and right-handed twirling fibers.
PHOTONS: Figure 1, in any of the three attachments, provides a view of the photon fiber, which is also called heat fiber sometimes. The energy of a photon fiber, given by Planck’s law E = hν, arises from its light-speed oscillatory motion along its length and about its origin (which is at its mid-length), rather than its translational motion. Its oscillatory motion is perpendicular to its translation; thus, a waveform is traced as it translate. Hence, light and radiation, in general, are not waves but are photon fibers that translate in a waveform. See Figure 10 in Section 6 of the book to see how an electromagnetic wave is formed when the fiber translates. Per Figure 1, perpendicular elements develop along the fiber length, due to Lorentz length contraction, as it oscillates back and forth at light-like speed along its length. These perpendicular elements give its B-field as it twirls about its origin. The energy given by the fiber oscillation is related to its oscillation range or stroke; shorter strokes yield shorter wavelengths and higher frequencies, and thus greater energies. The fiber energy hν is the limit of the external work that may be performed by a fiber during an interaction with a system or the internal energy contribution, the fiber gives to a macroscopic body, of which it is part of. The fiber’s intrinsic perpetual oscillating motion gives rise to the laws of energy conservation; that is, without such motion, energy would not be conserved in any process.
Regards,
Dan S. Correnti
Article UNVEILING of the ELECTRON (Post #1) [A Proposed Electron Structure]
Article DERIVATION of the ELECTRON (Post #2)
Book New Physics Framework (Post 5.1)
Sofia, Congratulations on obtaining many up votes on your post which questioned the meaning of the words: "How do you visualize a photon?" The definition of the word "visualize" is: "to from a mental image". Since photons have some contradictory properties, many years ago I was forced to adopt a mental picture of photons which contained the properties that were most important to my work with lasers. When designing laser resonator cavities, beam delivery systems, imaging, etc. the wave properties are dominant. Therefore I used a mental picture of a photon which was dominated by the wave properties but achieved particle-like properties through a vague idea of a quantization where the waves collapsed upon interacting with matter. Now that I have had more time to work on a larger theory encompassing all particles, fields and forces, the model of a photon has become much clearer. The model has many interrelated components which can be tested. For example, the models of particles and forces predicts that there should be previously unknown connections between gravity and the electrostatic force. I now have about 10 equations which describe various aspects of this connection. Some of these equations are in the attached paper published in April. Other equations will appear in a future paper.
Information about the portion of the conference dealing with photons is available at:
http://spie.org/OPO/conferencedetails/photons
My revised paper title will be "Energetic Spacetime - the New Aether". This title gives a strong hint that I will be proposing a model of a photon that generally falls under option "D" described in the explanation of the question. The model of particles, fields and forces is quantifiable. For example, the paper will derive the energy density of spacetime from general relativity. It also gives the distortion of spacetime produced by both photons and electric fields. I will be glad to discuss the validity of this model in about 9 days.
Chapter Spacetime Based Foundation of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity
Funny enough , the very similar question of what photon is has been asked, and considered in this very site multiple times. For instance: ( https://www.researchgate.net/post/A_photon_enters_a_transparent_medium_and_exits_the_other_side-is_it_the_same_photon)
The thing is, that all the concepts of seeing photon as an independent physical entity are senseless. It is a formal concept. If you wish it is a unit of measurement of electromagnetic energy of particular frequency. On the very same grounds as say kilogram, or liter or a foot. Only now it is associated with a particular type of light source, emitting light of particular wavelength (frequency).
Let me bring a more perceptual example: what is state of harmonic oscillator? What is quantum of energy of harmonic oscillator, to be more precise? To answer that, you would d have to define the eigenfrequency (mass and stiffness) of your spring, and than you would say that it is the minimal amount of energy that can be stored in the oscillator (up to factor of 1/2). Well, that is what your photon is.
John:
One of the greatest dangers of "visualization" is the very fact, that you are using some analogies, while often loosing the sense of limit of their applicability. Those might be very convenient, but often bring to very erroneous conclusions. Visualization of photon as particle is indeed a great example of such a trap. Generations of excellent scientists spend their lives on resolution of "paradoxes" that stem in going too far with this vision. The math is clear, and obviously correct. It is physical interpretation (the mental picture)that rises many of the problems.
Eugene, oscillator modes can be visualized, but dose it describe the concept of photon in either of 4 formulations mentioned by John?
Dear John,
after explaining your interpretation of "visualize" I feel better!
Yuri
I have a different opinion on "visualization" (although I agree with your description of a photon). It is true that many scientists spend their lives trying "visualizing" without success; they can even develop obsessions - it can happen with whatever problem we do not succeed to solve. However, it was "visualization" that led Copernicus to search for a heliocentric model, that led Newton to his gravitational theory, that led Einstein to his conception of the universe. My personal opinion is that we need more "visualization" and less maths. We have to know more than equations, not less.
When I think of a photon I visualize it as an ordinary particle, but with unusual properties, mainly because it moves so fast. I have reached this conclusion via a route that took 20 years to travel.
I first asked myself why the scale of material objects in the world is what it is. In a total vacuum there should be no concept of size or scale, so why is there a certain scale of things? According to GR (General Relativity) the scale has no meaning because the field equations are identical at different scales. This means that existence at various scales should be the same to us inhabitants. (Unless you believe that GOD created the world at a particular scale).
But maybe the scale is no constant but slowly changing? I have investigated this possibility in some detail and presented my findings in numerous papers. I found that cosmological scale expansion would lead a world that agrees with all our observations. And, it explains the Dark Energy and Dark Matter. (Hang on I will arrive at the photon soon!)
This new world-view would actually mean that the world is five-dimensional instead of four-dimensional with the scale of existence as the fifth dimension. And, I have shown that the Quantum Mechanical (QM) wave functions actually might be modulations in this fifth scale dimension, since Bohm’s pilot wave may be derived from GR if the scale oscillates. This would also explain the Kaluza-Klein “miracle” by identifying EM waves including the photon as being scale modulations of the Minkowskian line-element.
Here I must make a little detour. People have complained about Special Relativity (SR), in particular the Twin Paradox and the fact that SR cannot handle acceleration. By a curious twist of history Woldemar Voigt published a coordinate transformation that preceded the Lorentz Transformation (LT) by a few years; it only differs from the LT by a constant scale factor. Lorentz did not know about Voigt’s paper; if he had, physics might have taken a different path!
Voigt’s Transformation (VT) works as well as the LT, so had he known about it Lorentz may have used it instead of the VT and we would probably by now have known the cause of Inertia and resolved the Twin Paradox! (Hold on, I am closing in!)
Inertia is caused by acceleration, which implies transitioning from one Minkowskian 4D manifold to another in the 5D “hyperspace” of our world, while leaving behind states of apparently reduced scales, which create a gravitational-type force-the inertial force. So, Inertia is caused by changing 4D manifold in a 5D space!
This means that when we see an object in motion it is in a different 4D manifold with a scale that appears to be reduced. The length-contraction and time-dilation of SR are therefore only apparent, relative, phenomena! Furthermore, the velocity c is a constant of nature. It can never be reached, not even by a photon. Instead the true velocity of the photon is v*gamma=v/sqrt[1-(v/c)^2] where v is very close to c.
SO, THE PHOTON IS LIKE AN ORDINARY PARTICLE WITH NEGLIGIBLE REST MASS. ITS TRUE VELOCITY IS HIGHER THAN THE “SPEED OF LIGHT” c! IN SR THIS SITUATION IS HANDLED BY SLOWING THE PROGRESSION OF TIME.
Since the true velocity of a moving body is not what is observed, time-dilation does not occur. Instead the object moves faster than is seen. This should not be surprising since we use signals of limited velocities for our measurements. A traveler moving in a circle will therefore not come back younger, but just a bit earlier than expected due to her higher velocity.
Since the photon appears to move at c its Compton and deBroglie frequencies coincide and we may believe that we only are dealing with one type of wave. The deBroglie wave is responsible for spatial interference and the Compton wave for the particle aspect, for example a particle’s rest mass.
All this is developed in a Technical Monograph, which on demand currently is being printed by the Russian Academy of Sciences. (It seems that Russia is ahead of the US here!) I can send you my English original if you want it.
Johan Masreliez
Seattle
You can turn that around, too. An ordinary particle is a photon (e.g. going in circles, such as in Asif's theory). Since everything converts easily to or from photons, maybe photons are all that there is.
Johan,
natural scale is Planck's scale. If space-time is descrete at this scale, then number of dimensions is no matter much. All can be seen as one-dimensional. See old works of Henning F. Harmuth, especially "Information Theory Applied to Space-Time Physics" (1989).
Regards,
Eugene.
There is no evidence that light travels as photons. One cannot detect a single photon twice (before and after propagation), hence no evidence that the same photon travels in any sense. The description of electromagnetic energy as photons only applies when they are created or destroyed (or involved in a non-linear interaction). When light propagates it is fully described as an electromagnetic wave. Popular confusion arises from the belief in photons as things, despite zero evidence. A photon is a quantum limited quantity of optical energy.
Richard Epworth
This is a very useful answer. Quite to the point.
Thank you
Dear Johan (Masreliez),
your point of view that photons have mass is correct when one considers these quantum particles interacting with matter. But this is only a part of the full-story. In fact, I proved in my quantum gravity theory that in the quantum super Yang-Mills PDEs, say (YM), there exists a sub-equation where live particles without mass-gap. In other words photons that do not interact with matter are necessarily mass-free. The same works for neutrinos. (For more information please look DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nonrwa.2012.02.014.) Of course from this point of view the Standard Model works well ...
Dear Richard (Epworth),
of course from the phenomenological point of view your remark is correct ... But you forget that in order to encode world we have necessity to formulate a mathematical model. Well, in my quantum-gravity theory photons are geometric objects .... This agrees with other points of view, (theories), that even if less general, are proposed by scientists as Einstein, Planck etc... and universally accepted. Let me also add that your remark, ''When light propagates it is fully described as an electromagnetic wave'', is trivial one, as in such a case you refer to macroscopic world ... photons work at quantum level ...
Dear Agostino Prástaro, a theory is something that exists within our minds. A good theory makes predictions that can be verified by experiments. We must remember that theories for which we cannot find evidence within the physical world, may not have a reality within the physical world. Of course elegant theories always provide us with comfort, whether or not they are valid descriptions of physical reality. But we must remember the difference, or become blind to new discoveries. As an experimentalist, I must supend judgement on theories for which we have yet no physical evidence. It does not mean that I think such theories are wrong, only that it is too soon to collapse the uncertainty into a binary judgement.
Dear Richard, it may be too early to decide whether ALL consequences of my theory, considered in http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2894 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.4856 are experimentally verified, even if there is a lot of experimental results that support them. However, with respect to photons and neutrinos we have just enough evidences for. It is enough to be updated on some recent experimental results .... Of course in the science there is always room for further doubts ... but nowadays it is a nonsense to state that photons and neutrinos do not exist as mass-free particles !!!!
Agostino Prástaro "but nowadays it is a nonsense to state that photons and neutrinos do not exist as mass-free particles !!!!"
So I challenge you to provide evidence that an individual photon travels! (Neutrinos are a different matter). "Nonsense"? Niels Bohr: "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it."
I think the problem we have is that there simply is no explanation to the photon in current physics, Perhaps the photon would not be that strange with the right physics, When we say that is has to be massless, isn't this statement based on current physics? Would there make a difference if the rest mass were negligibly small? In practice the answer has to be NO, but perhaps not in current theory that claims that all photons move exactly at the speed of light. To me this means that the theory must be wrong. Some people reject observations that do not comply with theory thinking that these observations must be wrong. Then the theory changes....
John,
I must confess that I am somewhat perplexed at the article you posted (Spacetime Based Foundation of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity).
Based on the question you posted, I assumed that ‘visualizing’ a photon was your goal. But the above article contains only one figure (which is a graph) and a series of equations. I was expecting the article to be rich with graphics or links to simulations that would aid in the actual ‘visualization’ of a photon. Are you planning on doing this in the near future?
Dear Richard Epworth,
I am just winner in your challenge since my quantum-gravity theory proves that photons travels .... But my impression is that you did not read my papers ...
Of course it is more easy to claim famous sentence... (You use Niels Bohr's one: "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.")
I agree with this sentence, in fact my quantum-gravity theory is really shocking enough ... but it is also a robust mathematical theory and well supported from the actual status of our scientific knowledge.
Dear Yuri Paskover, whether you have the patient to read my work you can understand that an observed quantum particle is a 3-dimensional space-like integral chain with respect to the observing frame, contained in the observed quantum super Yang.-Mills PDEs ... but I just remarked this point in a my previous post in this thread ....
Agostino Prástaro. We seem to be talking about very different things. You are describing your theory, and I am asking about an experimental verification.
Peter, Perhaps my last post was a little confusing. The article that I posted forms the basis of understanding my photon model. It gives equations for the distortion of spacetime produced by photons in “maximum confinement” and equations for the distortion of spacetime produced by an electric field. The last post mentioned that this same theory was also generating equations relating the electrostatic force to the gravitational force and a few of them were contained in that article. The idea was that it was possible to prove that this approach was generating correct new insights into gravity and electric fields. However, you are correct that there were no pictures of photons. The article below is the first of two articles dealing with photons and it has pictures. However, it is also incomplete. The second article on photons is almost finished and will be posted to my ReseachGate page before July 20.
Article Spacetime-based model of EM radiation
Dear Richard Epworth,
I understood that you are interested to an experimental verification ! But you can consider at least one of the reactions reported in http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2894 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.4856, where appear photons encoded in my theory and to experimentally reproduce it. Then you will recognize that the theoretical prediction agrees with experimental data. In particular I suggest to look to part II .... for example the annihilation electron-positron. This is a very popular quantum reaction where you can easily test theory with experimental results. In this case you have two photons that 'travel' ... this is a problem for you?
Agostino Prástaro: " ... but nowadays it is a nonsense to state that photons and neutrinos do not exist as mass-free particles !!!!"
Somewhat off-topic: the standard model predicts that neutrinos are massless, but neutrino oscillation measurements suggest that neutrinos have a small rest mass. Do you dispute the conventional interpretation of these experiments?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino#Mass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T2K_experiment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactor_Experiment_for_Neutrino_Oscillation
Dear Alan,
unfortunately you did not read my previous posts on this thread. By the way here I confirm again that the recent experimental results on neutrino oscillations do not contradict the Standard Model, according to which neutrinos are without mass. In fact I proved in my quantum-gravity theory that all observed mass-free quantum particles live in a sub-equation, say X, of the observed quantum super Yang-Mills PDEs, say (YM)[i]. Instead massive observed quantum particles live in another sub-equation, say (Higgs)[i]\subset (YM)[i]. Mass-free quantum particles interacting with massive quantum particles, must necessarily enter in (Higgs)[i], hence must necessarily acquire a mass. This justifies the observed mass for neutrinos.
In other words recent results on massive neutrinos is another experimental confirmation of my quantum-gravity theory.
Agostino Prástaro: "In other words photons that do not interact with matter are necessarily mass-free. The same works for neutrinos"
Thanks for the reply.
I did not appreciate the implications of your statement. I am not an expert in this field, and took the phrase "mass-free" at face value. I had understood that some neutrino oscillations (such as solar neutrinos with energies less than 5 MeV) occur during propagation in vacuo. In contrast, your theory maintains that in the absence of other matter, neutrinos have zero rest mass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino_oscillation#Solar_neutrino_oscillation
Dear Alan,
you did not understand well experiments on neutrino oscillations !!! ... Please read more carefully the Wikipedia article that you reported ... The neutrino oscillations are detected for neutrinos crossing matter ... (not 'during propagation in vacuo' ) Look, for example, OPERA experiments.
I don't even try to visualise photons propagating in a vacuum. When you try, if you decide on one description, someone will come up with a contradictory observation. I'm happy being able to calculate when, where, and how often photodetectors will click. The fact that the clicks support quantisation and all sorts of correlations, classical and non-classical, can be inferred from the photocurrents, is enough for me. Having a picture of what happens before that is beyond me, but the maths of quantum optics and quantum field theory predicts the measurements we make very well.
Agostino Prástaro:
As you say, the Wikipedia article explains that for energies above 5 MeV, solar neutrinos oscillations are accounted for by the MSW effect within the sun.
In my post I specifically referred to solar neutrinos with energies below 5 MeV which MSW alone does not explain. In particular, the Borexino experiments measure solar neutrino flux at low energies. My understanding is that the results to date are consistent with the MSW-Large Mixing Angle model, which assumes both vacuum and matter-mediated oscillations, with vacuum oscillations dominant at low energies below 1 MeV.
For the OPERA experiment, the mean muon neutrino energy was much higher at around 17 GeV.
http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/lin/seminar_theory/talks/Talk_Maneschg_201114.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikheyev%E2%80%93Smirnov%E2%80%93Wolfenstein_effect
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1305.2513v1.pdf
Article Solar neutrino with Borexino: Results and perspectives
Dear Alan,
it is clear that your misunderstanding is caused from a wrong assumption: neutrino does not interact with matter. In fact, all experiments on neutrino oscillations assume that interaction of these particles with matter is negligible !!! On this ground one considers negligible interactions between neutrinos with sun, with atmosphere with the rocks etc... Of course these interactions are very negligible ... but also neutrino mass detected are very small ... On the other hand since one refers to the Standard Model, without to consider the geometrodynamic mechanism under which quantum particles can acquire or lose mass, given in my quantum-gravity theory, one concludes that neutrinos do not respect Standard Model. Instead the reality is different ... neutrinos considered in all experiments cross matter and necessarily interact with ...
Agostino Prástaro:
We seem to have some problems with mutual comprehension.
I have not assumed that "neutrino does not interact with matter". After all, if neutrinos did not interact with matter, the various neutrino detection experiments would not work.
You say "In fact, all experiments on neutrino oscillations assume that interaction of these particles with matter is negligible !!!". This is clearly not the case for the Borexino experiments I referenced. For example Maneschg (slides 20, 38) explicitly considers the different oscillation rates in vacuo and in matter, using the MSW-LMA model.
You recommend that I read more closely the Wikipedia article I linked previously. This refers to the MSW effect to explain higher energy Solar neutrino oscillations. According to Wikipedia: "The Mikheyev–Smirnov–Wolfenstein effect (often referred to as matter effect) is a particle physics process which can act to modify neutrino oscillations in matter".
Are you telling me that the model used by these authors is inadequate? If so, I am not equipped to judge the relative merits of your theory, the standard model, and what seems to be a conventional treatment of neutrino oscillations, as for example, in the Warwick teaching notes (below).
Perhaps we should drop the neutrino discussion and return to John Macken's original question about how to visualise a photon.
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/current/teach/module_home/px435/lec_oscillations.pdf
Attached is the paper that I just submitted for the SPIE conference with the session title "The Nature of Light: What are Photons?" The title of the submitted paper is: "Energetic Spacetime: The New Aether". This paper summarizes some of the earlier work that lays the groundwork, but the earlier papers are available at my ResearchGate home page. The combination of these papers gives a quantifiable and conceptually understandable model of a photon.
Article Energetic Spacetime: the New Aether
Dear Alan,
I agree with your last resolution. However, let me only underline that when I state 'misunderstanding is caused from a wrong assumption: neutrino does not interact with matter', I refer to the contradiction between comparison between Standard Model and experimental results. Really it is well accepted that there non-massive particles acquire masses with the breaking-symmetry mechanism. For example, thanks to this mechanism all massless 4 gauge bosons in the electro-weak gauge theory produce 3 massive gauge bosons (W^+,Z^0,W^-) and 1 massless gauge boson (photon). Now this mechanism is a particular case of my more general quantum-geometrodynamic mechanism to acquire mass for quantum particles going in interaction with matter...
Dear John,
I have seen your announced interesting paper. I will carefully read it and I will post my remarks about.
With compliments,
Agostino
I recently completed a project of many years which establishes a "classical" foundation for QED as a deterministic set of pdes on a tower of wavefunctions. This requires some additional labels not found in QED and reduces the question of what a particle "is" to just a coordinate and spin label for wavefunctions in this tower. A by product is that the "quantization" of the photon arises from norm conservation in this tower and inherits is magnitude, hbar omega, through the coupling with the fermions. Makes the answer to the question a bit anticlimactic but still somewhat interesting. The seeming loose end is how to deal with a many time space and how to describe a reasonable domain of dependence but these are addressed as well.
Article Beyond Quantum Fields: An Operator-Free Covering Theory for QED
Dear John,
I read with interest your paper 'Energetic spacetime: the new aether', despite my previous post against your points C and D. In fact the choice to put in the title an old-fashion terminology could suggest me a different approach. However in the following I list a set of criticisms.
1) Your space-time is a fluid where are present waves at the Planck distances . This should encode the concept of quantum vacuum. This point of view does not substantially differ from a discretization of space-time, like in the loop quantum gravity.
In my opinion this is a mechanicistic approach that, as the Lorentz's old aether, assumes just a the beginning a structure that, instead is not necessary at all.
2) Really in order to reconcile GR with QM we have to start from a simple geometric structure that unifies the general relativity geometric philosophy with the noncommutative logic of the quantum mechanics. This can be made by considering quantum (super)manifolds as I introduced.
3) Space-time is a macroscopic concept ... quantum space-time does not exist ! Physics is Geometry ... Therefore to unify GR with QM it is not sufficient to consider a quantum space-time, but it is necessary to consider a Quantum Geometry.
4) What you consider energetic spacetime is really a solution of the observed quantum super Yang-Mills PDEs, in my quantum-gravity theory. But this has more geometric structure than your energetic spacetime.
5) Any mathematical model in Physics, must be dynamical one. In other words does not exist a rigid vacuum structure, but exist only solutions of boundary value problems of dynamical equations encoding some phenomena. Therefore any unifying theory of GR and QM must be a geometric theory of PDEs in the category of quantum super manifolds.
John,
It should be remembered that Maxwell, Planck, and Einstein established the basic properties of radiation. Maxwell’s work indicated that radiation translated at the speed of light in a waveform and has magnetic and electric properties. The work of Planck and Einstein indicated radiation is made up of quanta (photons) and is not continuous.
It should be remembered that Maxwell’s equations only indicate that radiation translates in a waveform but is not a wave itself. Therefore, by extension, the quanta (photons) derived by Planck and Einstein are the constituents that trace a waveform when they translate. It’s quite astonishing that this concept continues to be overlooked by the physical science community.
Therefore, any non-spherical model of the photon has to show how it traces a waveform when it translates and how it displays its magnetic and electric properties. If the waveform property exists, then photons will display wave/particle duality in an interferometer.
A photon model that conforms to the above properties has been derived incidentally to the derivation of the electron. A view of the electron is given in Figure 2 of the attachment and view of the photon is given in Figure 1.
In Figure 1, the photon fiber is referred to as a heat fiber (see Footnote 1 as to why). The energy of a photon fiber, given by Planck’s law E = hν, arises from its light-speed oscillatory motion along its length and about its origin (which is at its mid-length), rather than its translational motion. Its oscillatory motion is perpendicular to its translation; thus, a waveform is traced as it translates. Hence, light and radiation, in general, are not waves but are photon fibers that trace waveforms when they translate. See Figure 10 in Section 6 of the referenced book to see how an electromagnetic wave is formed when the fiber translates.
Per Figure 1, perpendicular elements develop along the fiber length, due to Lorentz length contraction, as it oscillates back and forth at light-like speed along its length. These perpendicular elements give the photon’s B-field as it twirls about its origin. The electrical force potential (E) of the photon fiber is derived from and is synchronized with “B”; changes in “B” give “E” per Maxwell’s equations and is perpendicular to “B”. It should be noted that “B” is a field and “E” is a force potential that results from movement of the field. The energy given by the fiber oscillation is related to its oscillation range or stroke; shorter strokes yield shorter wavelengths and higher frequencies, and thus greater energies.
Regards,
Dan S. Correnti
Article UNVEILING of the ELECTRON (Post #1) [A Proposed Electron Structure]
Agostino, The model of the universe that I propose to explain a photon is very different from loop quantum gravity. In loop quantum gravity, space is granular (quantized). The size of the grains are Planck length, but these are static pixels with no energy density. The model of the universe that I propose is dynamic with energy density of about 10113 J/m3. The difference is that, as previously explained, spacetime is filled with waves which modulate the distance by Planck length and modulate the rate of time such that flat spacetime can have perfect clocks differ by Planck time. These are waves primarily at Planck frequency.
This model has an unmatched success in being able to generate 1) curved spacetime, 2) the gravitational force between fundamental particles, 3) the electrostatic force between fundamental particles if alpha is provided and 4) equations which connect the gravitational force and the electrostatic force. The most recent paper also derives the energy density of spacetime from gravitational wave equations. All of this is new. The papers can be downloaded from my ResearchGate page.
Dear Dan,
I read with pleasure your post, and let me report the following propositions:
'The work of Planck and Einstein indicated radiation is made up of quanta (photons) and is not continuous.
It should be remembered that Maxwell’s equations only indicate that radiation translates in a waveform but is not a wave itself. Therefore, by extension, the quanta (photons) derived by Planck and Einstein are the constituents that trace a waveform when they translate. It’s quite astonishing that this concept continues to be overlooked by the physical science community.'
The situation for photons is similar to other particles, for example gravitons. Unfortunately often one identifies quantum particles with the corresponding fields. On the other hand in my quantum-gravity theory, founded on the geometric structure of quantum super PDEs, this confusion cannot arise standing the different geometric role of these objects.
My best regards,
Agostino
Dear John,
thanks for your remarks. My comparison of your model with loop quantum gravity does not mean that these models coincide. I simply emphasized that in both one assumes at the Planck distances some thing that nothing has to do with the geometric noncommutative structure. The loop quantum gravity discretizes and you put waves. What has to do all this with the noncommutative logic of the quantum world ?
I found that completely ignorant audience it is best to talk about photons as small particles of unspecified size that swirl around. Their trajectory is determined by electromagnetic waves. This duality is somewhat mystical and thrilling at the same time to such audience.
For my own purposes in vast majority of time I found the first quantization picture the best. Classical EM waves propagate through the experimental setup and when they reach a matter they can excite (dielectric, cathode of a PMT, whatever) they do it as a function of wavelength and in proportion to their intensity. Photons do not exist before reaching such matter say the detector. Probability of having a photon in the next second is proportional to the intensity. This works like a baby.
In rare occasions though, as in explanation of 2-photon entanglement , one must use a full-blown second quantization picture, and I myself am still struggling with picturing that.
This is all Newton's fault :) He set back the whole humanity by at least next few thousand years by devising a theory that is simple and works for virtually all we can perceive with our own bodily sensors but which theory is blatantly WRONG. We teach it to our children at early ages so that neural dendrites in their brains get programmed in un-repairably wrong way. When a tiny percentage of them , at an adult age learn about the Quantum Physics, the true Theory of the Universe, they cannot understand it, they can at best just calculate.
That is you and me, my friend. The others are blessed by ignorance, they will never know how happy they are. Good luck with your YL2015 talk !
It is a bit of a delicate question. They are only relevant during emission
or absortion of light from solids.
Usuall vizualization is that of a finite train of light beam. However a finite train
of light beam does not have a perfectly defined frequency, for hbar omega.
You might look into photon chopping experiments
regards, juan
I think that one can visualise the photons just as point particles.
However, given the initial point and the final one, the photons have the property to follow more paths, just as any other particle in quantum mechanics, and quite differently from what you expect from a classical particle.
(Of course I refer to the propagation of waves in optics and/or to the formulation of Feynman of quantum mechanics, with the aim of emphasising that the problem is not to visualise the photon, but to understand quantum mechanics.)
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1933/schrodinger-lecture.pdf
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html
Cannot help adding one more thought to this board. One may define photon as THE QUANTUM in QED. That is, it is the difference between QED and classical optics. Putting the same differently, photon is everything that is NOT wave in QED.
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